Why ‘Watch Dogs’ Is the Best-Selling New IP Ever

Any new video game franchise is a big deal for the company making it, but Watch Dogs is particularly important to developer Ubisoft because the company has spent the last five years making the game. That’s a sizable investment — paying five years’ worth of salaries to a large team of writers, artist, producers, programmers, and designers so they can come up with and create a top-notch AAA game requires more than chump change. If early sales numbers are any indication, it looks like that investment is paying off.

Just how much is it paying off? Ubisoft announced that Watch Dogs sold 4 million copies in its first week on the market, making it not only the company’s best-selling game in that amount of time, but also the best-selling new IP across the entire video game industry. Those are impressive statistics to say the least, especially in a gaming landscape full of companies that tend to avoid risk by pumping out sequels to popular franchises.

Ubisoft’s senior vice president of sales and marketing, Tony Key, said in the press release, “We’re really proud of this achievement, and are confident that the Watch Dogs brand has a promising future.” This seems to indicate that Watch Dogs will be spun out into a recurring franchise, much like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry games. Additionally, Ubisoft announced that their free mobile app called Watch Dogs Companion: ctOS Mobile has been downloaded by over a million people. The app lets you participate in multiplayer matches with someone playing the full game on a console. The player on the mobile app sees an overhead map of the city and controls the police, while the console player tries to escape.